To quote the webpage-teaser: “3-D animation rendered by thousands of Purdue computers provides virtual tour of an earthquake-proof city adjacent to Istanbul, Turkey.” If this is the outcome of “thousands of computers” – they should consider to buy new ones. Sketchup would have managed to do a similar animation with far less efforts and power. But maybe this is just a first milestone. I’m not too impressed.

With “Teragrid” power i would expect moving people, waving trees, birds flying… but the two months for modeling and rendering must have left little time to put up detail. On the architectural side is a “painful” experience seeing something that will have no “urban” quality! The architects must have lost the last 15 years of discussion around quality of life in cities and sustainability. With three people and 10 computers i would easily make something similar 😉

How could you include more multi use spaces to make more efficient use of the land? Could you show incremental simulation that shows how the culture will shape the emerging urban form. How will this new city be financed? How will people living in the old city be relocated? Do they get a lottery ticket and hope to get a nice spot near friends and neighbors? Just curious. Maybe I’m looking to deeply at this.

…it does look like Purdue’s campus…lots of rectangular and H-shaped dorm like structures with similar engineering mall like fountain. The transportation center is lot nicer than Purdue’s airport though from what I remember.